


We’d meet at a post-apocalypse

by NotUlysses



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Magic AU, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-03-30 09:04:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13948293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotUlysses/pseuds/NotUlysses
Summary: In which our heroes flee zombies, make out on an island, get stuck and have to be rescued.Dumbasses.





	We’d meet at a post-apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stealthsuit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stealthsuit/gifts).



> Thanks to my betas for helping make this better. All remaining mistakes are my own. 
> 
> Title from The Zombie Song, by Stephanie Mabey, because I'm hilarious.

“Come with me if you want to live.” 

“Wait, what?” Luc blinks at Sonny, confused. Sonny’s not really a ‘quoting Terminator’ kind of guy. He’s more into, well, stoner comedies, because Sonny Milano is a living parody of himself. 

Sonny rolls his eyes, “I said, come with me if you want to live,” he grabs at Luc’s hand, and tries to tug him into a standing position. 

They’re having brunch at one of their favourite spots in Easton, and it’s a perfectly ordinary Wednesday morning; maybe it’s not so strange that Luc doesn’t automatically understand what the hell Sonny is doing. 

He’s known Sonny for a while now, and he’s a strange guy, yes, but… generally more in a ‘doing dumb things while high’ way, not a ‘suddenly freaking out’ way. 

“Why? We’ve got nothing to do today, right?” Oh god, did Luc forget about a practice or a team thing? Probably not, because the odds aren’t good that _Sonny_ would remember it if Luc didn’t. 

Sonny shakes his head, “12 o’clock,” he hisses, “be subtle”. 

Luc didn’t know that Sonny knew the meaning of the word, but he glances over his shoulder. He’s not sure why Sonny is interested in a server, or why he’s speaking like he’s been possessed by the ghost of an action hero. 

“She’s… a server?” he turns around again to face Sonny, tilting his head as he contemplates the agitation on his face. “Is this one of those ‘bad trips’ they warned us about in school?” 

Sonny grabs Luc’s hand again, “I’m not _high_ ,” he says, earnest. “We have to get out of here _now_.” 

Sonny’s almost never serious, let alone _this_ serious. Luc tries to flag down a server, so he can get the check, but Sonny bats at him to get him to put his hand back on the table. Like he doesn’t want the server to notice them. Maybe she’s an ex? He’s never known Sonny to have a girlfriend, though. 

“ _Why?_ ” 

Sonny glances around them, and then lowers his voice. “She’s a necromancer. Probably one of a few in the area right now. Her type tend to work in groups of five.” 

Luc glances back again. She’s taking a drink order to the annoyingly loud guys a few tables away and she... looks like a pretty ordinary woman, really. He’s not sure why Sonny is accusing her of being a necromancer. 

He’s not even sure what a necromancer _is_. Necro means, like, wanting to sleep with dead people, right? 

Sonny looks at him, correctly interprets the confusion on his face, and sighs, “necromancers are people who raise the dead and use their corpses to do evil shit.” 

Oh. That makes sense. Well. Wait. People can _raise the dead_ to do evil shit? And _Sonny Milano_ can figure out who these people are? 

“How can you tell?” he asks. 

“Aura,” Sonny says, grabbing at Luc’s hand. “We should _really_ get going, though, unless you like being stuck here and possibly endangered by the rotting, walking undead.” 

That’s a _no_ , so even though Luc is still confused about what the fuck is happening, he leaves enough money on the table to more than cover their bill and tip and lets Sonny drag him out the door. 

“Where are we going?” Luc asks. He wonders if ‘Sonny’s car’ is sufficient protection against the undead. 

Which is, by the way, apparently a thing that exists outside of horror movies. What the fuck? 

“Wait till we get into the car,” Sonny says, “I need to listen to the radio, see if the others have been reported yet.” 

“Reported?” 

Sonny holds up his phone, “I just sent an anonymous report to the government through an app I have. Other people have probably done the same.” 

Of course there’s an app. 

“How do you know these things?” 

Sonny shrugs. 

“I saw my first necromancer when I was three,” he explains, “Magic runs in my family? It’s mostly just a thing I can do.” 

Luc nods. Of course. Magic. Right. Makes perfect sense. Well, at least auras make more sense than freaky death-magic. 

“Anyway, it used to be faint, but when I was 14 I discovered weed and now... Wow. There’s so many _colours_ in people’s auras, you know.” 

Luc rolls his eyes, because of course Sonny’s hidden magical powers were strengthened by weed. 

They get into the car, and Sonny fiddles with the radio for a moment, tuning it to a station that Luc has never heard before. It’s just a guy, reading out a list of numbers and what sounds like codewords. 

It doesn’t make sense to Luc, but Sonny’s nodding along as if it does to him, so that counts for something.

Luc watches him, curious, because Sonny’s the one who went to an extra Dev Camp just so he could hang out with his bros and go to the zoo. The one who decided to skip college because the OHL sounded like ‘way more fun’. He’s not the ‘understanding numbers’ type, but the intense expression on his face while he’s listening is...

Luc swallows, and tries to dismiss that train of thought.

Eventually, after about two minutes, the number start repeating, and Sonny nods. “Right, group of seven, which is unusual. Must be after something big.”

“After?” 

Sonny shrugs. “It’s not like they’re trying to bring about the end of the world. These are just third grade necromancers, and most of them just want to rob jewellery stores or banks or steal cars with their zombie army.” 

“There are _grades_ of necromancer?” Luc is starting to feel very, very stupid. 

“Of course,” Sonny explains patiently. “It’s like in hockey. Some people are only good enough for house league and some people make the NHL. Magic is a talent, man.” 

“How do we not know about this? Shouldn’t it be on the news?” Luc mostly plays video games and follows hockey, yeah, but he feels like ‘sometimes necromancers raise the undead’ is a Thing that he should know about. Particularly since there’s apps and… people _report them_. 

“It’s a lizard people conspiracy, bro,” Sonny explains, patiently. “They use necromancers to, like, raise the dead so they can steal their skins to cover their reptilian forms. And they’ve infiltrated every level of government world wide, so it’s easy for them to keep this covered up.” 

Now, Sonny _has_ referred to Torts as ‘the Man’, so Luc isn’t certain that that’s true and not just something Sonny believes. Probably the official line would be some bullshit about protecting people or something. That makes sense, kind of. 

“So, do we stay here? Go home?” What’s the game plan for ‘a necromancer-ing server ruined our perfectly good brunch,’ anyway? 

“Not a good idea to stay here,” Sonny says, “and we can’t go back home, the Arena district is where one of the others was sighted.” 

“How can you tell?” Luc asks for what feels like the fifty third time that day. He’s furiously glad that it’s Sonny, because he’s sure that Zach would have thrown him out of the car for being stupid by now. Or even worse, glared at him with that deadpan expression. 

“They referred to one being located in the Hippodrome. That means the Arena District.” 

“Huh,” Luc says. 

“Yeah, it’s the _government_ , so most of their codes are breakable by just, like, looking at a thesaurus. Like Easton is just Weston and Dublin is Cork. _Very_ boring. But convenient.” 

“So if we can’t stay here, and we can’t go home, where do we go?” 

“I have a cache in Whetstone Park.” 

“You have a _cache_ in Whetstone Park?” 

“One of them, yeah. I have caches all around the city. Just in case.” 

Luc is discovering a whole different side to Sonny Milano. And, well, he _liked_ Sonny before, liked hanging out with him and going to brunch and learning all of Sonny’s best shootout moves, but he really likes this unexpected competence. 

When they get to Sonny’s cache, which is hidden surprisingly well in Whetstone Park, Sonny tosses Luc a backpack. 

Luc checks inside, and it seems to be a survival kit and food. Well, some MREs and a fair amount of weed. Plus some water bottles and water purification tablets. 

“I thought that you just had the MREs in your apartment because you like eating them while high,” Luc says. 

“Well, that too. Have you seen the heater? It’s like _magic_.” 

“Says the person who apparently has magic,” Luc retorts. 

“Not heating food magic, though,” Sonny points out. “That would be way cooler than seeing colours around people all the time.” 

Luc really can’t say anything to that, because yeah, Sonny’s right on that one. 

“Anyway, we need to head to the river,” Sonny informs him, after he re-hides the cache. 

“The river?” 

“Zombies are, like, allergic to running water or something, bro,” Sonny explains. 

They end up hiring a canoe from some stall in the park. Luc didn’t know you could do that, but apparently Sonny’s memorised every place in Columbus that’s even vaguely useful for helping to avoid the Zombie Menace. No wonder Sonny’s so unfocused all the time, if he’s spending all his brain cells on knowing that at any moment zombies could kill them all. 

It takes them a bit to get the canoe going, but luckily skating gives you decent balance and hockey gives you good upper body strength, so they manage to figure it out after a few false starts.

“Where are we going?” Luc asks Sonny, once they’re able to get going in a straight line rather than spinning in circles. 

“See that island over there?” Sonny points, which has the unfortunate effect of making the canoe start to rock from side to side. It takes a tense few moments of steadying from both Luc and Sonny so they don’t end up in the river, but they manage it. 

After they successfully manage to avoid capsizing, Luc squints at where Sonny had pointed, and, well, it doesn’t really look like an island to him. In fact, it looks more like, well… 

“You mean that huge pile of mud and garbage?” 

“It’s an _island_ made out of mud and garbage,” Sonny points out, “and it’s the best place to hide out until the all clear happens and we can head home.” 

Luc is skeptical, but he doesn’t want to keep paddling around like an idiot all afternoon so it’ll have to do, he supposes. 

They set course for the mud-and-garbage island, which isn’t as bad smelling as Luc had expected. Or maybe his nose is just desensitised by years of exposure to hockey gear.

It _is_ kind of muddy, though, and Luc is starting to worry about the effect it’s going to have on his jeans, but then Sonny digs through the backpack, and it turns out there’s an actual picnic rug in there, so they spread that out and just sit for a while, listening to the static and occasional repetition of code from Sonny’s portable radio. 

“Does this happen often?” Luc asks, after the code has repeated itself for the third time with no changes. 

“Couple of hundred times a year.” 

“Wait, why haven’t I heard about this? I mean, surely there’s a lot of mysterious deaths from this stuff?” 

Sonny shrugs. “Most of them are low grade necros. Really we don’t have to be hiding.” 

He shrugs again, and Luc looks at him, because, wait, they don’t need to be spending their afternoon on a garbage island?

“It’s like the Supervolcano,” Sonny eventually continues. “We all know there’s a Big One coming at some point, we just don’t know when. But we prep for it.” 

“Thanks for taking me along on your drill, then.” 

Sonny beams, because apparently auras can’t tell him that Luc is being sarcastic. “You’re the first person on the team I’ve told about this. I knew you were a true bro and you wouldn’t laugh at me.” 

Luc instantly feels bad about being grumpy, because it _is_ cool that Sonny wants to share this with him, and even more so when Sonny lets him use the magic heater to heat their MREs. 

“Who’s we, anyway?” Luc asks, through a mouthful of moderately-tasty ration food. 

“Ever been to Reddit? There’s a sub for necromancy preppers.” 

“Of course there is.” 

Sonny grins at him, and Luc is struck by how pretty Sonny’s eyes are when they’re alight with passion. 

“So how did you get into this anyway? Like, okay, you can see that the necromancer people are Bad News, but. How did you find out about all this… preparation stuff?” 

Sonny is not known for being well-prepared, after all. Luc, as his road roomie, knows that he’s had to buy extra underwear on road trips because he forgot that you need to pack a pair for _each_ day. 

“I just... I knew the government was hiding something, bro. Like, why not tell everyone about the evil zombie magician threat? So I went online and found other people wondering the same thing.” 

Luc wonders if they’re all magic, too. Or paranoid conspiracy theorists. Or both. 

“And then I marathoned all of Disaster Preppers while high,” Sonny continues, waving his hands around very dramatically, “and realised that what the people on the show were doing makes so much sense, so I decided that I should, like, prepare myself. For the Big One.” 

Maybe it’s how enthusiastic Sonny is, or how amazingly competent he is at preparing for disaster, but Luc gives into the impulse to lean in and gently kiss him. 

Sonny seems surprised for a moment, but then he kisses back, equally gentle. 

Luc opens his mouth a bit, and Sonny does the same. He’s not a bad kisser, actually. He might give off spaced-out vibes, but he’s got the ability to figure out exactly how Luc likes being kissed, and then just do that.

Luc wonders idly if it’s because of his magic.

They spend three repetitions of code like that, exploring each other’s mouths pretty thoroughly. 

After a while, Luc pulls back, and asks, “so, like, what kind of colours do you see? In people’s auras?” 

“All sorts, particularly since the first time I got high. There’s, like, a person’s natural colour, then there’s tints for, like, if they’re good or evil or whatever — generally necromancers are, like, a grey dead look? It’s hard to explain — and then there’s tints for how I feel about a person, like if I have a crush on them there’s more red, or if I don’t like them there’s more blue, or if I’m scared of them they’re yellowish. That kind of thing.” 

Luc kisses him again, then pulls away. “Can you sense my feelings towards you?” 

“I’m an aura-seer, not an empath,” Sonny says. 

“Oh.” Luc’s head is spinning with all of this information. There’s so many terms within magic. It seems so bizarre that he doesn’t know about it. 

“What’s the difference?” he asks. 

“Empaths, like, feel emotions and stuff, bro. Aura-seers, see, like, colours around people that represent their soul,” Sonny explains, patiently. 

“So, what you’re saying is, I have to tell you how I feel still?” 

“Pretty much, yeah,” Sonny says, looking at him. 

“Okay,” Luc leans in again, and says, “I think it’ll be easier to just show you, though.” 

“Mmm, probably,” Sonny whispers, breath hot against his lips. 

They kiss for a while, and end up with some absolutely fabulous hickeys on their necks (some of them won’t be able to be hidden by a jersey, oops), with the radio in the background as the least romantic soundtrack to making out since Luc got hot and heavy with a guy while watching Goon. 

…Come to think of it, at least Goon was about hockey, which is automatically kind of hot. Numbers and codewords and zombies are never hot. 

“It’s not how I expected to spend my afternoon, sitting on a garbage island in the Olentangy,” Luc murmurs at one point, pulling back to take a breath and run his fingers wonderingly over the mark he left on the hollow between Sonny’s collarbone and neck, “but the company makes up for it.” 

“Mm,” Sonny agrees, lazily.

They lean in again, but the radio chooses that moment to sound an alarm. Luc jumps and looks at it, panicked. 

“That sounds bad. Is it bad?” 

“Nah, bro,” Sonny says, easy, “that’s just the all clear. Emergency’s over, we can totally head back now.” 

“Oh,” Luc says, kind of disappointed. Even if this island is a literal trash pile, they definitely shared Some Moments here. Leaving makes him feel kind of. Well, empty. 

“We could go back to my apartment and order proper food and, then, like Netflix and chill,” Sonny points out when he sees the look on Luc’s face. 

And, yeah, okay. He’s not that attached to this pile of garbage after all. 

“Okay, let’s bail.” 

They pack up their stuff, Sonny actually taking the time to fold the picnic blanket properly, which shocks Luc more than almost anything else he’s seen today (he’s seen Sonny’s apartment, okay? It’s like, the dictionary definition of ‘stereotypical college student doesn’t know how to clean or buy furniture or feed himself’). 

They’re almost ready to leave when they hear an absolutely horrendous noise. 

“Is that your radio?” Luc asks, glancing at Sonny, who also looks confused. 

“Nah, bro,” Sonny says, “I turned that off after the all clear.” 

“Then --” 

Swimming towards them appears to be an absolute army of ducks. There’s at least a dozen of them, and they’re _loud_. What. The. Fuck. 

Luc thought ducks were meant to be cute. Emma Savard’s got several stuffed ones, all soft and fluffy and yellow. 

There’s nothing cute about these ducks. They’re bigger than Luc expects, almost muscular, like they body build, and not soft or fluffy, but mud coloured and kind of edgy. And the noise they’re making sounds like it could have come from the depths of hell itself. 

And they’re heading straight for garbage island. 

“I think I’d rather take my chances with the zombies than the ducks, bro,” Sonny admits to Luc, nervously. 

Luc doesn’t laugh, because, yeah, the ducks are really scary, and possibly demonic. Luc’s pretty sure ducks don’t normally have red glowing eyes, for example. 

“What are they doing?” Luc asks. One of the ducks appears to be directing the other ducks. Ducks aren’t supposed to have leaders, he’s pretty sure. 

He wishes he’d paid more attention in biology. Or possibly preschool. 

“I think they want the canoe.” Sonny looks worried. 

The ducks do, for some reason. A group of them are pushing it. One of them jumps into the canoe, standing at the front like he’s captaining it. 

“You can swim!” Luc yells at them. 

One of the definitely demonic ducks hisses back at him. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Sonny swears, and Luc has to agree. 

“Don’t you have magic? Isn’t there, like, a spell for this?” 

“Still don’t have that kind of magic.” Sonny is actually starting to sound kind of stressed, and Luc feels bad for being unhelpful. “All I can tell you is that the ducks definitely have a terrible aura. All black and spiky.” 

“Are they... Is this related to the zombie thing?” Maybe the ducks are, like, controlled by the evil zombie magic? Luc, with his two and a half hours of knowing about magic, assumes that’s a thing that can happen. 

“Nah, they’re not dead. Just evil,” Sonny shudders theatrically, “my best guest is bored animal-mind controlling teenager. Or, like, dumped magic spells mixing with pollution.” 

“That happens?” Luc eyes the river, dubious. 

“Yeah, bro,” Sonny says, “apparently it’s, like a real problem in the magic community or something. Sometimes spells mix and it gets messy.” 

The ducks get their canoe back in the water, and. Okay, they’re fucking strong. 

It would be fascinating if the ducks weren’t _stealing their canoe_. 

“Why are they stealing the canoe?” Luc doesn’t whine, exactly, because that would be childish and undignified. 

Sonny looks worried, “I don’t known, man,” he says, “I don’t do ducks.” 

Luc picks up a rock, chucking it notat the ducks, but in their general direction. Just to see if they can be deterred. 

Yeah, it doesn’t work. If anything, it makes them angrier. One of them leaps into the air, swoops down and.Fuck. 

…there go his sunglasses. 

Fuck.

“At least it didn’t injure you,” Sonny says, after he stops laughing a minute later.

”Yeah, that would suck. Imagine explaining ‘I got attacked by an evil duck,’ to the training staff.” Luc might actually die of embarrassment. 

“Okay, so, fighting back is a terrible plan,” Luc confirms, grimacing.

So they just watch, speechless, as the ducks get their canoe into the water. They don’t seem to actually have a plan for it, content to let it drift with the current. But… they’re definitely not letting it remain on the island. If it does look like it’s going to float back, they bump it, so it keeps floating away. 

“Well, bro, this sucks,” Sonny says, morose, “and my weed’s in the backpack, which they also stole.” 

Luc pats him on the shoulder, sympathetically. 

“It’s not too bad, though. We can swim across, right?” Luc says, eying the water, “or wade. I don’t think it’s that deep.” 

He picks up a stick and plunges it into the water, confirming that it is, in fact, a lot lower than a hockey player in depth. 

“There’s _leeches_. And pollution, both magic and non-magic. And probably some sort of terrible vibes,” Sonny says, still morose. Luc isn’t sure how much of it is because they’re stranded and how much of it is because the ducks stole his weed.

“Wait,” Luc says, excited, “I stuck the water purification tablets in my pocket. Maybe we can chuck them in the river?” 

Sonny eyes the river doubtfully. “I think radiation is a bit beyond their powers. And anyway, we’d need, like, at least 300 times more tablets to purify the entire Olentangy.” 

Yeah, now that Luc thinks about it, they _are_ pretty small. 

Luc groans, “And you’re absolutely sure you can’t magic us out of this?” Maybe adrenaline and necessity will get Sonny to develop some kind of useful power? 

“Sorry,” Sonny grimaces, “literally all I can do is see auras,” he thinks for a moment, then adds, “my uncle Vinnie can walk on water, though. But only when he’s drunk.” 

“Have you ever tried?” Maybe it was a hidden talent. Sonny did have unexpected depths, after all.

“Of course,” Sonny says, cruelly dashing Luc’s hopes, “It’s a rite of passage in the Milano family. That’s how we discovered that my sister can breathe underwater. She can do it all the time, but she’s better at it after eating hot dogs with sauerkraut.” 

Fuck, that’s… pretty useless, Sonny. “Are all magic people like this? Able to do things, but only if they, like, eat or drink certain things?” 

“Nah, other people are able to do stuff without,” Sonny says, waving his hand vaguely, “this is mostly just something that runs in the family.” 

God, so apparently magic isn’t only real, magic is real, it runs in the Milano family and they are… _incredibly impractical_ magic users. Luc is starting to think he should be more terrified of that than the rotting undead, to be honest. 

(To be fair, he’s never been stuck on an island with a member of the rotting undead.) 

“Then we’re going to have to call someone,” Luc says, glumly. He tries to think of someone who won’t chirp them to hell and back for this, but gives up, because the entire team would. And he’s definitely not going to call a member of staff for this. He really doesn’t want to have to explain this to Jarmo. 

So he calls Nick, on the grounds that, as a captain, Nick should probably be more sympathetic than the rest of the guys. Plus he’s a dad, and so should be kind to the poor young rookies who got themselves stuck on an island on an off day. 

“Dubi has a boat,” Nick tells him, after he gets through laughing at them. So much for captainly sympathy, “I’ll let him know he needs to go rescue the rookies. He’ll be thrilled.” 

Luc swears when he hangs up. 

“We’re not going to be rescued?” Sonny seems pretty calm, but then again he’s almost always calm. Luc used to assume that all the weed he consumes makes him permanently kind of high, but maybe it’s also because he knows he’s prepared for the end of the world. 

“Good news: yes. Bad news: by Dubi.” 

Okay, that breaks Sonny’s equilibrium, because if there’s no guy who wouldn’t chirp them, there is definitely one guy who’d be _leading the chirping_. 

“Oh, fuck,” Sonny mutters. 

Luc feels his face flush, “we’re never going to live this down. The rookies that will come along when we’re vets will tell _their_ rookies.” 

Sonny shrugs. “You could blame me, man. It’s what I do.” 

“Nah, we can both share this one.” Luc grins at him. “We’ll get chirped forever, but it won’t be _too_ bad.” 

“It could be worse. At least we know a guy with a boat. Imagine if we’d had to call the fire brigade or something to get us.” 

Luc shudders, “okay, we’d definitely never live that one down. God. Can you even imagine?” 

“Jody would probably find out and tell Jeff about it on a broadcast,” Sonny says, immediately taking it to the worst possible scenario. 

Luc shivers, because god, he’s right. 

He gets a message from Dubi, telling them that he’s on his way and asking where, exactly, they are. 

“Does the send location thing work here?” 

Luc tries it, and sure enough, it seems to know where they are. At least they got stuck on an island in the middle of a populated city, he guesses. Remind him to never go camping with Sonny. 

“So, anyway, what’s our story?” He asks as he puts his phone away. 

Sonny looks at him, puzzled. 

“Saying we were hiding from zombies is likely to get us a lifetime of jokes. Well, a lifetime of _more_ jokes.” 

“True,” Sonny thinks for a minute, than says, “keep it simple? We were bored and decided to go canoeing, saw an island, decided to explore and… forgot to, like, tie up the canoe?”

“Still sounds dumb, but not ‘by the way zombies are real and so are evil necromancers who control them for their own evil ends, which mostly seems to be robbing jewellery stores.’” 

“Maybe they just wanted to Experience Myers Jewellery,” Sonny says, pointing solemnly. 

Luc cracks up. 

Eventually they hear the sound of a speedboat in their area, and, ha, of course Brandon Dubinsky keeps a speedboat in Columbus during the season. It's obnoxious-looking, too, like he stole it from the set of some old Bond film. It was definitely made to speed through European canals, not rescue dumb rookies from the middle of the Olentangy.

They can see him laughing from the moment he’s close enough, and oh, _great_. 

Maybe they should’ve taken their chances with Jarmo.

“… You realise you could’ve just waded across, right?” 

Luc is not going to roll his eyes, as much as he wants to right now. It’s been a long day, Dubi. 

“The water’s absolutely _teeming_ with leeches. If we’d waded across Ayotte would be lecturing us tomorrow about how losing so much blood definitely isn’t good for our performance.” 

Dubi cracks up. 

“So, you’re scared of leeches?” 

“They’re _bloodsucking slugs_ ,” Luc informs Dubi, speaking very slowly, because he can’t believe he has to explain that. 

Dubi just laughs. “Okay, so let me get this story straight, because I need to be able to tell _everyone_.” 

Luc braces himself, because this is not going to be fun. He can even feel Sonny tense next to him, and Sonny’s famous as the guy who got stuck in a supply closet at the Arena for half an afternoon and just told a pissed off Torts that he thought it was the bathroom, man.

“You went canoeing, because you were bored, decided to explore a garbage and mud island in the middle of the river for no good reason, forgot to secure your canoe, and… got bailed up by leeches and had to call Nick to get someone to come help you.” 

He looks them over, then adds, “And apparently you guys went exploring without any supplies? I’m surprised you’re not dead of dehydration already.” 

“Sonny brought supplies!” Luc points out, feeling strangely defensive of Sonny’s ability to plan. Okay, so he might be a complete space cadet at… literally everything else, but he’s really good at survival stuff. 

Apocalypse survival, anyway. Day to day survival you’re still on your own. 

“Oh?” Dubi raises his eyebrow and scans them and the island, clearly wondering where these supplies are. 

“They were stolen by evil ducks,” Sonny mutters. 

“Evil ducks? God, this story gets better and better.” 

Luc groans and buries his head in his hands. He can’t believe Sonny just handed the ducks over to Dubi, all gift wrapped like that. 

He’s not the magic one, but all of a sudden he can see the future and he knows their lockers are going to be filled with little plastic ducks sometime very soon. 

“Believe me,” Dubi says, smirking like he can read Luc’s thoughts, “I’m going to make sure that they’re still telling rookies this story at dev camp in fifty years’ time.” 

“Fuck you,” Luc mutters. He’s grateful for the help, really, but god. 

Still, Luc is going to work on convincing one of the other guys to buy a boat. Maybe Nuti. He would never mock them like Dubi is currently doing, and he doesn’t speak enough English to repeat the story to everyone in the entire team. 

Or maybe next time they could not get stuck on an island. Maybe canoeing around the river like idiots for an afternoon would’ve been better. 

“Anyway, get in. You two idiots can buy me dinner to thank me for coming all this way to rescue you from garbage island.” 

"Of course, bro," Sonny says, as light and breezy as always. 

Dubi looks at him suspiciously. "And I want something decent. You're not getting rid of me with cheap fast food. I'm a _very_ expensive man." 

Luc is _so_ shocked by that, Dubi. 

"Hey, Sonny, would you rather fight a Dubois-sized duck or one hundred duck sized Duboises," Dubi cracks as he starts the engine of the speedboat again.

Luc cringes at the way Dubi draws out the pluralisation of his last name, which is exactly the reaction Dubi was aiming for, of course. 

"I'm a lover, not a fighter, man," Sonny says, easy, ducking Dubi's attempt to headlock him.

If their coaches could see how vigorously he manages to defend himself from a rough-housing Brandon Dubinsky, they’d probably never worry about Sonny’s battle ever again.


End file.
